After a stroll through the 798 Art Zone with NKL (see previous post), he took me to the Art Museum of the Central Academy of Fine Arts (中央美術學院; CAFA) in Beijing. CAFA is an art academy managed by the Ministry of Education of China. It is considered one of the most selective schools in the country.

The CAFA Art Museum, designed by Japanese architect Arata Isozaki (磯崎 新), is located at the northeast corner of CAFA campus. The Museum opened in October 2008, for the University’s 90th anniversary.  So this year is the University’s centenary anniversary.

The school drew media attention during the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, during which the students protested by creating a large statue, called the Goddess of Democracy.

NKL took me to see the special exhibit on the works by Xu Beihong (徐悲鴻; 1895 – 1953) who is the first president of CAFA and a painter.

Self portrait oil painting 1924

He was well known for his traditional Chinese ink drawings of horses.

Traditional caligraphy. I am no connoisseur. No masterpiece here.

He was also regarded as one of the first to create monumental oil paintings with epic Chinese themes – a show of his high proficiency in an essential Western art technique. These oil paintings are so strange as we are all used to seeing Western faces, green eyes and blonde hair.

In 1919, Xu studied overseas in Paris at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, where he studied oil painting and drawing. Notice he signed this drawing in French: Péon 1924.

Xu constantly pushed the boundaries of visual art with new techniques and international aesthetics, in bid to reinvent Chinese art.

Charcoal.

1940 portrait made in Singapore

Between 1939 and 1941, he held solo exhibitions in Singapore, India and Malaya (Penang, Kuala Lumpur and Ipoh) to help raise funds for the war relief effort in China.

There were quite a lot of people on that day since it was raining outside.

There was a mock up of his study. He was a pioneer and a patriot.

It is really an interesting show about a painter that played an important role in the development of Chinese modern art.